The
deal by the RJR Communications Group will
see them installing over the next few months UNIV's uVOD (video-on-demand) Streaming
Platform. It will allow the Group's various TV, Cable and Radio Stations to be
accessed over a common branded portal both via the Web. It will also allow
anywhere access via an App on smartphones and Tablet is Jamaica and worldwide.

The
RJR Television Stations to be streamed on this new uVOD Streaming Platform by
October 2014 are as follows:

However,
RJR Group Director of Finance, Andrea Messam, was mum on the cost of launching
the System, as apparently the money is being sourced even as they sign the deal
with UNIV.

UNIV,
for their part having experience with getting other large companies to set up
their uVOD Streaming Platform, is pretty upbeat at the prospect of their deal
and achieving the go-live timeline by October 2014, to quote Chief Technical
Officer of UNIV Ariel Matzkin, quote: “UNIV is committed to helping RJR make
the most of their digital assets by empowering them to deliver on-demand and
linear Content to viewers everywhere, at any time and on any screen”.

Those
companies using their VOD (Video on Demand) Platform include the following on
their experienced contractor-for-hire shortlist:

Television
barely has Streaming portal, save for Television Jamaica; the rest
listed far above have no Streaming portals save for RE TV (Reggae Entertainment TV). Streaming
implies different services will be forthcoming and in this case, it appear to
be the case, to again quote RJR Group Director of Finance, Andrea Messam: “We
haven't worked out the details, but there will be different types of services,
with different bundles so the costs will vary”.

Thus
the following services are possible with a few caveats that need to be in place
for it to be a success:

But
the impromptu nature of the announcement a mere three (3) days after the
purchase of the 700 MHz and the AWS Spectrum was announced for Telecom Provider
Digicel and Telecom Provider LIME suggests that it may really be a preliminary
announcement and not something concrete.

Already,
Television Jamaica is testing
the waters. Viewers accessing visiting Television Jamaica’s Website and
trying to access Live Streaming will no doubt told that they have to sign up to
get a Java-based JwPlayer in order to view the Live stream. For the
not-so-tech-savvy, this may have caused some confusion, especially if you don’t
have the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) already installed on your computer of if
you have a Tablet or smartphone.

In
my mind this smacks of panic on the part of RJR
Communication Group, as they didn’t even pre-announce it on Television or
Radio to explain to customer how to use this JwPlayer Script, which I’ve
downloaded, registered for but I’m still trying to figure out. I however, like
the fact that it’s embeddable, something many a Web Administrator will welcome,
which suggests that in the future it may be possible that Television Jamaica Videos may be
embeddable like YouTube videos.

So
Piracy of their Audio and Video Content should be a major concern for them.

Broadcasting on
Schedule for DSO – 2015 is the Year of DTT and Digital HD Radio

So
it’s without question that UNIV’s uVOD Streaming Platform is the RJR Communication Group’s defense against the
coming onslaught of Streaming VOD and Radio over 4G LTE. More interestingly,
it’ll also be sporting a paywall to monetize their massive library of Content.

But
what of DSO (Digital Switch Over)?

This
uVOD Streaming Platform is merely riding upon the hopes of ubiquitous
always-available 4G LTE Broadband Internet. The RJR
Communication Group has no way of knowing how Jamaicans will react to this
service and utilize it, suggesting that this may not be their only strategy.

They‘ll
also have to make plans to also put in place physical infrastructure to build
out a DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) Network capable of Digital
Television Broadcasting using the newer DVB-H or ASTC Digital Broadcast
standards to replace the older NTSC Analog Broadcast standards.